Knowledge Intensity of Information Technology and Its Implications for the Digital Divide in the Age of Globalization

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Increasing global connectivity enabled by advanced information technology (IT) has arguably become a new source of global inequality between those wired and those unwired. Some predict this new divide to replace more traditional divides along political or socioeconomic characteristics, while others foretell it to reinforce the latter. This paper explores which scenario is more likely and why. I hypothesize that whether IT eradicates or effaces old divides hinges on the degree to which IT development is knowledge-intensive. If devices or products supported by advanced IT require a substantial level of skill and knowledge for their use, such IT development is likely to widen the existing socioeconomic divide. I further claim that current globalization has favored knowledge-intensive ITs, hence worsening the existing inequality. I test this hypothesis on the cross-sectional and longitudinal data, deriving measures of knowledge intensity of selected IT categories, linking them to the socioeconomic characteristics of the target users, and tracking their relationships over time. One of the implications of this study for higher education is that higher educational institutions pressed to adopt more knowledge-intensive IT in this globalization era may unfortunately perpetuate existing inequality unless they make conscious efforts to countervail such effects.

Stream: Disciplines and Interdisciplinary

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Dr. So Young Kim received a M.A. in political science from Seoul National University, a M.S. in the Mathematical Methods in Social Sciences from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University. She worked as a data archivist at the University of Chicago, a data analyst for the 1.3 million dollar Pew Trust funded project for Hispanic Churches in American Public Life, a data analyst for the Chicago Community Policy Program Evaluation Consortium, and an assistant professor in political science at Florida Atlantic University. She now teaches political science at KAIST in South Korea. Her research interests include international political economy, comparative politics, and quantitative methodologies in social sciences. She currently studies the dynamics and consequences of globalization focusing on the economic and technological aspects.